Remember when we told you last week that Warner Bros. was already planning ahead for Green Lantern 2 and 3? Yeah, we weren't kidding around. Today's Variety reports that the studio has gone ahead and hired Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix writer Michael Goldenberg to write Green Lantern 2, just a few days after production wrapped on the first film.
Goldenberg wrote the Green Lantern script along with Greg Berlanti, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim, who also contributed treatments for the sequel's script. It's unclear why Berlanti and the others haven't been brought back for the writing duties, but it probably has something to do with Berlanti's fledgling directing career (Life as We Know It hits theaters this fall) and Guggenheim's executive producer role on this fall's No Ordinary Family. In addition to Harry Potter Goldenberg wrote the scripts for Peter Pan and Contact, so he's got the background in the fantasy/sci-fi realm. Sticking with consistent screenwriters for the first two Green Lantern makes sense as they try to blaze through production-- you could call it the Twilight method-- but Goldenberg had better be careful not to burn out on Hal Jordan and his intergalactic adventures.
Green Lantern is clearly a huge priority for Warner Bros. as they try to build a new franchise while the Harry Potter series wraps up, and though the movie's Comic Con presentation fizzled a bit, there's still a lot to look forward to from Ryan Reynolds' first full-blown superhero turn. Yeah, maybe it feels a little premature for Warner Bros. to move ahead with a sequel, but you know what they know about Green Lantern that we don't? Pretty much everything.
